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My daughter has
always had some kind of craze for shoes. When she was a baby, she would play
with shoes and slippers. When we were in the shops, she would try on the
different shoes and would tell me that she wanted them. But she has never
really asked for them like she did yesterday.
She has been
putting on my slippers and she likes the ones that make the ‘trok trok’ noise
on the floor. That is why we have the name for such sandals – trok trok
slippers. I told her that I will buy her a pair of such slippers. After that,
she clung on it and yesterday, she wanted it so badly that she wouldn’t even
eat (she had not been having a good appetite too though). So as soon as her
daddy was ready, we had to go to town. It was barely 9 a.m. We loitered around
for sometime in the vegetable market and then went to Etho Metho Plaza. Luckily
a shop that was just opening had such slippers. And she got them.
Oh boy, she was
so happy! She put them on immediately and at home, she boasted it to everyo…

I had an official dinner, which wasn't compulsory. But I chose to go because sometimes it matters. I am sorry that I wasn't there to put you to bed. This is how you greeted me when I got home just now.

This is a
question I have been asking myself for a long time now. If I knew that I couldn’t
access it, I know I wouldn’t have the temptation to open it during office
hours. I agree that it sometimes gives us a refreshing moment of break from
work. For example, the other day I was kind of bogged down with work –
somewhere in between, there was something I didn’t know, which made me
stressful. Taking a break from it, I was talking to three friends in a group
chat, which definitely gave me the freedom and the space to share my problem,
thus relieving myself. But often, such break can stretch to an hour or more.
And when it does, it doesn’t quite seem right.

Acting on this
impulse and conviction, I blocked it. I tried thrice in fact. And each time, I
got a call from staff asking me if it has been blocked. If I blocked a site
other than FB, I am sure they won’t notice it at once, or their response won’t
be that quick. They will not immediately telephone me to find out what
happened. Of c…

I have never written a post directly on my blog but I am doing it now. I know I have grown a year older today; as my friends wished me to have all my wishes come true in a healthy, long life, I couldn't help feel a little sad as well. It is not that I am unhappy that I am growing old. The feeling I am getting is something like a grace you feel in the face of a morning sun, or the tears you feel welled up in your eyes in an audience of a high lama. Last year I chose not to display my birthday in my Facebook profile thinking that it actually burdens people to wish me even though more than half of them didn't remember it or didn't care. But I changed that later because I realized that it actually gives my friends a reason to contact me, at least on this day and it is in fact nice to hear from them, even if it is superficial. And who doesn't like hearing from their friends? It also has a positive psychological effect on me. It makes me feel that my friends have cared to sa…

The question
that the presenter threw back to the audience had me thinking. Professor
Martin Carnoy from Stanford University, who was the resource person for the
seminar on Education and Democracy organized by the Bhutan Centre for Media and
Democracy asked this question to the audience. It was a reaction to the advices
that the Bhutanese audience gave to the teacher who was feeling lost being
placed as a primary school teacher in a very remote school after completing the
training as a secondary school teacher. The young teacher said, he was
everything at this remote school – from sweeper to principal. While he knew
that the job as a teacher would be difficult, he didn’t imagine it to be as
challenging as it was, as he experienced. He said, ‘I am still feeling lost.’
There are students from classes PP to two. He takes classes PP and 1 simultaneously,
which is extremely hard. Not knowing how to tackle the challenge, he consulted
the parents of those children. The parents thought he sh…